According to a February 2014 CDC report, 18.1% of adult Americans smoke cigarettes. This percentage represents 42.1 million people.
Those numbers show that on the large scale, many Americans smoke. However, this article will look at smoking on Shepherd University’s campus.
There are many factors behind why people smoke. Some do it to cope with stress and others smoke socially. Some people believe there is still a stigma involved with smoking, but others don’t.
Some students say that smoking is a social thing for them. Emily Womeldorff, a sophomore elementary education major, says she started smoking a few years ago because her best friend smoked.
Zoe Robinson said that smoking is a social thing. “I didn’t smoke until I came here as an art major,” she said. She said that when she would hang out with friends, everyone smoked. When she went home for the summer, all of her friends smoked as well. “It just became a habit,” she said.
Robinson believes that smoking still has a stereotype attached with it because she sometimes sees someone smoking and thinks, “Oh, I didn’t think they would smoke!”
However, Matt Bunn, a freshman music major, said that he doesn’t think that it matters. “It’s college,” he said, “no one cares what you do because you’re an adult.”
Austin Dotson, a junior environmental science major, agreed. Dotson also added that although he doesn’t mind the smokers on campus, he doesn’t like seeing the cigarette butts left on the ground.
“That can wash into the river and pollute things. That’s the only thing that bothers me about it,” Dotson said.
There are many stories about how students at Shepherd University started smoking, but some may wonder what keeps them doing it.
“I don’t know if smoking helps with stress or not,” Womeldorff said, “but you kind of tell yourself that it does.”
Jason, an environmental science major, simply said that it’s an addiction. He recalled trying to quit multiple times, but said that smoking is an “old friend” that he just kept coming back to.
Smokers on campus enjoy smoking with friends to destress or just simply to smoke. Whether or not smoking has a stereotype attached with it is a matter of opinion. However, smoking can be found taking place all over the university.